User Clip: Sean Spicer Speaks!

White House press secretary Sean Spicer blew his chance to properly illustrate the exception that proves the rule.

Watch Sean Spicer mispronounce the regular plural of the noun, index. Of course, he could have just used the word, indices, or better yet, indexes. But not surprisingly, our intrepid servant babbled more blather instead. Bravo. Speaking of which, notice how he often trips over his words, and in this case, says "shines" rather than "signs." And don't forget another shortcoming: he is a practitioner of the phrase, "you know."

Notes: Some regular plurals tend to tie our tongues. Hence irregular plurals, which eschew the unwieldy extra syllable for a change in pronunciation with "ease." Unfortunately however, some speakers unnecessarily apply that rule to regular plurals, both adding the extra syllable and changing the pronunciation as well. Think processes and biases, which normally are said with ease but are somehow curiously pronounced with "ease." close